


Carefully We Gather

by tackytiger



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Clothing, Don't copy to another site, Feelings, Injury Recovery, Jaskier is a Snappy Dresser, Jealousy, Kissing, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Nipple Licking, Pining, Snowed In, Stitches, Swords, Torture of a Minor Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:35:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23247130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tackytiger/pseuds/tackytiger
Summary: They've been snowed in at the inn for six days now, and Jaskier still isn't speaking to Geralt.It's just, killing monsters is what Geralt does. Just because this one came a little bit too close to killing him first, doesn't mean that Jaskier has to get in a sulk about it. And why does he care so much, anyway?
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 24
Kudos: 210
Collections: Lock Down Fest





	Carefully We Gather

**Author's Note:**

  * For [M0stlyVoid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/M0stlyVoid/gifts).



> I'm sorry, I don't really know what I'm doing with this one! It's my first foray into the fandom, and I hope I've pitched it right.
> 
> Huge thanks must go to [m0stlyvoid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/M0stlyVoid/pseuds/M0stlyVoid) for the beta work , the endless patience, and the chats.
> 
> This was written for Lock Down Fest, and I want to send hugs and huge multifandom good vibes to my co-mods magpiefngrl (who was the brains of the operation), nerdherderette, and onereader. It's been a gift, working with you all and getting to think about something _nice_ at the moment.

By the time Geralt can get out of bed again, the snow is withers-high on Roach and there’s no way out of the inn.

Geralt supposes there are worse places he could be marooned—there _have_ been worse places he’s been marooned—and at least the food is hot and the ale is strong. The bard is still sulking somewhere (probably in someone else’s bed), though at night when Geralt’s lying sleepless in the quiet bedroom, he can hear Jaskier singing for the drinkers down below.

And it’s good that he has the room to himself, he knows that. The wound is healing fast, but it still stings like fuck, and sometimes when he wakes in the darkest part of night and rolls over into the expanse of empty bed, Geralt has to bite back the small, hurt sounds that try to escape him. He wouldn't want Jaskier hearing that.

And it’s definitely not as though he _misses_ the bard. Geralt doesn’t need friends—friends don’t pay, friends get in the way, friends are just another thing he has to watch out for—and the road ahead is long whether there’s someone walking it beside him or not.

Still, he’s glad that the bard is safe and back to his warbling, because the last time Geralt had seen him, he was sitting white-faced and enraged beside Geralt’s bed watching Geralt wake, though as soon as Geralt had opened his eyes, Jaskier had stood up and left the room silently—which was a first. 

And the time before that had been when he had very nearly been carried off by the Griffin. And he would have been, too, if it hadn’t been for Geralt knocking him flat on his arse out of reach of those cruel, curving claws, and taking a nick to the side that went all the way down to the ribcage for his pains.

And the time before that, they had fought.

Geralt just likes a quiet life when he can get it (not that the bard has ever willingly stayed quiet about anything), so it was really Jaskier fighting with him, and Geralt just listening and nodding and continuing to get his weapons ready. But Jaskier had been right, and that Griffin’s talons _had_ been dipped in something… well, something bad, and if it had got Geralt’s throat rather than his ribcage then the poison would probably have taken him sooner than the Golden Oriole could have fixed him.

Still, it’s what Geralt _does_ , isn’t it? Fight monsters, kill monsters. The monsters always try to kill him back, it’s just how it goes. Just because this one came a bit closer to succeeding, well… Geralt can’t just stop because the bard asks him to. What else is he supposed to do?

* * *

One night, when Geralt wakes, the bard is back.

It’s been six days since Geralt last saw him, and Jaskier still looks angry. It’s the middle of the night, but because the moon is bright on the snow that’s still piled halfway up the gable end of the inn, Geralt can see the petulant curl of Jaskier’s mouth, his gaze resentful under that infuriating fall of hair.

Geralt is heavy with tiredness, stupid with it in fact, and he has to blink himself awake before he can speak. 

“You finally came back, then? Was there no further satisfaction to be had elsewhere?”

His voice is roughened by fatigue, and it can only be this blasted poison sickness that allows something else to bleed through so Jaskier can’t help but hear it—something small and sad in the quiet of the room. 

It’s easier when Jaskier steps away from the window, because then Geralt can only see the moon-gilded lines of him as he moves around their room. 

“Have I ever asked you not to go to work before, Geralt? I told you that farmer was up to something, but you absolutely insisted on going anyway. To fight a fucking Griffin the size of a warship. I knew there was something fishy about the whole thing, but did you listen? No. _Jaskier, I’m going. Jaskier, it’s not going to be a problem. Jaskier, I know what I’m doing._ Well look at you now, you stubborn idiot. Half-dead in the bed—and it hadn’t been for me, you’d have been fully dead and not a ducat to show for it either.”

“Jaskier!”

And that’s quite enough of that, Geralt thinks, because he’d be getting his money as soon as the snow cleared, and he’d be letting that farmer know exactly what he thought of someone who tried to lay a trap for a Witcher while he was at it. 

Geralt heaves himself out of bed as he shouts—when the bard is in full flow, the only hope of stopping him talking is to be louder than him—but moving hurts, still, so badly, and as the sly lick of pain travels from his ribcage down into his gut, he winces despite himself.

Jaskier sees, of course, because he’s as sharp as Gesheft when it comes to noticing every single tiny fucking thing, and he’s a shifting shadow in the room as he moves swiftly to Geralt’s side.

“Stay still, you fool,” he murmurs, and he doesn’t have to be loud anymore because he’s _right there_ , just like he’s supposed to be, and those clever fingers are cool and competent over the heated ridge of the wound.

“This looks like it was stitched by a drunken sailmaker,” Jaskier says, and he sounds a bit more like himself when his voice goes low and amused and confiding like that. But then Geralt has to shut his eyes because Jaskier drops to the floor (gracefully, like he does it a lot), and he kneels in front of Geralt with his hair in his eyes and his bloody doublet swinging open like a summoning. He peers at the wound, blows his hair out of his eyes to see better, and Geralt feels his cock twitch, minutely, mortifyingly, under nothing but the warm kiss of Jaskier's breath.

Anyway, what does Jaskier think he’s _doing_ , looking at Geralt’s injury as though it’s totally normal to just closely inspect your naked fr… Witcher? Putting his hand over the fan of Geralt’s ribcage, _leaving it there_ as Geralt’s breaths quicken and stutter? It’s not Geralt’s fault—Jaskier knows he sleeps naked, it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before. But it feels different, like this, in the moonlight, with nothing but a finger’s breadth of space between them, and the bard smiling up at him like this is something they’re allowed to do.

“You’ll live, Geralt,” Jaskier says, and grabs Geralt’s forearm to pull himself to standing. But he doesn’t step away; he holds himself in front of Geralt, with just a shiver of night air separating them, and he smiles. This close, in this darkness, any smiles should be slow and seductive, but Jaskier is always so very much himself, and his smile is the same sunny heartbreaker of a thing it always is, whether he’s singing or wooing or drinking.

It’s that smile that does it.

Geralt had _wondered_ , of course—had felt the sideways slide of Jaskier’s eyes on him in every tavern from Nilfgaard to the Dragon Mountains, had heard the _songs_ , for fuck’s sake. But that’s not the same as being sure, and it’s not as though Geralt has ever had anyone to show him how to do this. Because usually Geralt is on the move, and though he’s liked a few people in the past, and fucked _a lot_ of people in the past, he’s never taken anyone he liked along with him before. He had thought (and oh, how he had _thought_ ) that moving on to fucking might be too much altogether.

Like everything with Jaskier, though, the unexpected feels easy, when it happens.

He’s still smiling when he closes that last gap between them. Geralt hadn’t realised how well he knew the shape of that smile, but his mouth knows exactly how to move so that he can taste the whole generous stretch of it. Jaskier makes a noise that Geralt has never heard from him—not in all this time of sharing rooms and beds and tents—something low and contented, like a purring cat, and Geralt feels the thrum of it in his chest. It rests there, where his heart knocks against his breastbone, and he can feel his medallion buzzing along with it like it always does when Jaskier’s near.

Even now, when he knows that he’s wanted, he’s still waiting for Jaskier to touch him, he realises—waiting for Jaskier to let him know what to do—but he’s not sure why, anymore. Geralt is so big, that’s all, and he’s used to having to be gentle when he’s not fighting. But Jaskier is big too—tall and wiry and taut with muscle—and he never lets anyone make him do something he doesn’t want to do. Geralt doesn’t even have to bend his head to meet Jaskier’s mouth, and Jaskier’s hand is firm and insistent where it’s tangled in Geralt’s hair. When Geralt tugs Jaskier’s lower lip between his teeth, Jaskier breathes out hard and starts walking Geralt towards the bed, and Geralt just _goes_ , lets himself be directed, and it’s so good. 

Jaskier arranges him on the bed with such efficiency that it feels like it might be something he’s thought about before, and when Geralt finds himself lying down, it’s with the firm confidence of Jaskier’s strong arm at his back, lowering him ever so gently, and Jaskier pressed hard against his good side, from chest to knee.

“You need to rest,” he says, and his fingers are nimble over the shuddering bracket of Geralt’s ribcage just above the wound, and Geralt has a moment to feel something sharp and wanting—though it can’t be loss, not for something he’s never had?—before Jaskier leans over him and follows his fingers with his mouth. 

“You just lie there.” The words are spoken into Geralt’s skin, so he can feel the heat of them. “I’ll take care of you.”

It sounds like a promise, Jaskier suddenly so serious, every word heavy in the hush. Geralt gets to have him, if he wants him.

So Geralt takes that infernal doublet in his fist, tugs it wider so that it gapes wantonly off one smooth shoulder. Jaskier’s wearing the undershirt with the frothy lace edging, and it feels as supple as skin under Geralt’s fingers, worn thin as onion paper over years on the road. He can see the darker rose of Jaskier’s nipple through the fabric and he plucks at it, pulls Jaskier upwards so that he can put his mouth over the tightening peak. It’s not enough though, and he tugs at the hem of the vest so he can get his tongue to it properly. Jaskier always smells so clean—warm skin, and salt, and the ozoney smell of whatever his innate magic is, and the sharp meadowsweet tang of herbs—and he tastes fresh and familiar under Geralt’s questing tongue.

Time turns elastic, then, stretching out impossibly taut as Jaskier rears over him, still half-dressed, pink and panting and shockingly silent, his mouth a silent oh of pleasure at the touch of Geralt’s mouth to all those hidden places of his. And when it’s too much for Geralt, when he tries to roll the bard under him and has to stop and grit his teeth through a new pulse of agony along his injured flank, Jaskier presses him back down into the mattress and holds him still until the pain passes. Geralt says _fuck_ , and Jaskier says _I know, sweetheart, I know_ , and that just makes Geralt say _fuck_ again, but softer and more broken-sounding, and he can’t even bring himself to be ashamed.

And they don’t stop, not even then—Geralt doesn’t think he could stop if he tried—and before the pain dulls to nothing Jaskier’s greedy sucking mouth is on him and he forgets and tries to arch up further into the wet heat of it. Jaskier has to hold him down, pressing into the blades of his hipbones to keep him on the bed, and Geralt is so hard, and so close, that when Jaskier pulls offs and tells him, “Next time, when you’re better, I’m going to fuck you,” Geralt comes just like that, all over his own stomach and Jaskier’s fingers, and Jaskier licks him clean.

* * *

The next morning, the bed is empty again under the icy spill of winter sun through the casement.

Geralt is almost glad, because he wouldn’t want the bard to see him smiling like this, and anyway the lute is by the window so Jaskier can’t have gone far. Outside, the snow stretches unbroken on all sides.

When Jaskier doesn’t come back, and Geralt turns out every bed in the place to no avail, he knows they must have him. He wouldn’t have left his lute behind.

* * *

The thing that wears Jaskier’s face tells him, _I want you_.

The thing that wears Jaskier’s face tells him, _I know what you taste like._

The thing that wears Jaskier’s face tells him, _Don’t you know how much I love you?_

And it’s that, even more than the cold stillness of the medallion at his throat, that tells Geralt this isn’t his bard. Because Jaskier would _never_ say it first. Though according to the thing, he feels it. Geralt thinks it’s probably telling the truth, because it screams it aloud while Geralt is carving off a thin slice of skin from its throat. 

They had thought that the thing could get close enough to Geralt to kill him if it wore Jaskier’s face, or maybe that Geralt would be slower to kill it. He _is_ slow to kill, but only because the thing takes its time telling him where he might find the people who took Jaskier. And when it comes to taking the thing’s head off in the end, he’s as fast and clean as he ever is.

He takes to the road. This time, he knows where he’s going.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and thanks for reading.
> 
> I'd love to hear what you thought of this, and I welcome chats on Tumblr too - [I'm @tackytigerfic](https://tumblr.com/blog/tackytigerfic) on there!


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